Category Archives: Alex Galchenyuk

As disgusting as can be were the actions of a couple of morons at the Bell Centre last night who abused two young ladies wearing Senators jerseys – Harassed at the Habs game.

These aren’t Habs fans, althought I’m sure they say they are. These are strictly first-class sub-humans that, when they’re not abusing young ladies, loot and riot after the Canadiens win a playoff series.

They steal radios from storefront windows and go home to their parents’ basements and play music while they pick their noses and ogle naked women in old National Geographic magazines. And if they can find what they’re looking for in their pants, they feel like they finally have a love life.

As an old and proud Habs fan, it’s embarrassing what has happened, and I apologize to the ladies involved for the actions of these cockroaches. Hopefully these dudes will visit an out-of-town rink someday and good old karma raises its head.

A night at the Bell, with Mrs. Beliveau cheering wildly, with PK putting on a show and Chucky winning it in overtime. And meanwhile, a couple of neanderthals pull this nonsense.

I just hope the Habs organization, which we all know is probably the classiest in the league, does something nice for these young ladies. And I also hope these guys are exposed and dealt with in proper fashion.

People have to know that most Habs fans aren’t like this, although what remains mind-boggling is the fact that people in surrounding seats sat back and apparently did nothing.

Alex Galchenyuk wheeled and fired in overtime, Sens goalie Andrew Hammond slammed his stick in disgust a second later, and the Montreal Canadiens skate away with a 3-2 win in game 2.

How big a win is that?

Now it’s on to Ottawa on Sunday to do it again.

It could’ve been a night squandered though. Leading 2-1 in the third frame, the Habs failed to score on two consecutive power plays, which would have sealed things, and soon after, with Alexei Emelin in the box for interference, the game became suddenly tied.

But it was still anyone’s game, eventually finished off by Chucky, and all things considered, this has to be a solid punch in the guts of the Sens and their fans. Are you feeling bad about this?

It was a lively, fast skating, hard-hitting game, with none of the fireworks expected after the PK/Mark Stone affair had everyone in a dither. Rough and tough, mind you, but no ugliness. And, if you’re a Habs fan, which I’m sure you are, it was a fine win that gives the Canadiens a lovely two-game lead in the series.

Two straight must be like a flurry of punches in the guts of Sens fans.

Definitely a punch in the gut came when none other than PK himself, as despised as can be by Sens fans and one they see as the anti-Karlsson, sent a missile past the head of Hammond, making it 2-1 Habs at the time.

How sweet it would’ve been if Subban’s goal was the winner, which in itself would have been even one more great punch to the gut. And I’m pretty sure Sens’ fans weren’t all that thrilled to see Max notch one in his first game back too.

I don’t blame Emelin for his interference penalty which led to Ottawa’s tying goal. He seemed to be headed to the bench at the time and got caught in traffic, which led to holding someone up. And I also think Emelin played a fine game at both ends of the ice, and even found himself with a great scoring chance early on.

Devante Smith-Pelly has stepped it up since he first arrived and now finding himself with scoring chances, along with making nice little plays, and he doesn’t mind thumping bodies. This guy could be truly important as things move along.

Up two games is a beautiful thing and I’m very proud of the boys. Now it’s time (on Sunday), to really turn the screws. How about another couple of nice punches in the gut.

Random Notes:

Montreal outshot Ottawa 42-31 and went 1/6 on the power play. Ottawa was 1/3.

There was good, bad, and disturbing in the Canadiens 4-1 win in Sunrise on Sunday, so I’ll just get down to mentioning some before I head to the 7/11 to buy a creme-filled Easter egg.

Carey Price finally nailed down his 42nd win of the season, which ties him with Jacques Plante and Ken Dryden.
Michel Therrien grabbed his 200th win as coach of the CH.
Tomas Plekanec scored his 200th NHL goal, all as a Hab.
Devante Smith-Pelly scored his first goal as a Hab after converting a nice pass from P. A. Parenteau.
Parenteau scored a dandy, going coast to coast, grabbing his own rebound, and firing.
And P.K. Subban, looking like a slick forward, sent a reasonably tough pass across to Brendan Gallagher who buried it in twine.

The bad? Carey Price was run into on about five different occasions, a couple of times having his mask was knocked off, and….this is the part that really gets me…..his teammates did next to nothing to show that this sort of thing is unacceptable. Not even one little punch to a face.

This, with the playoffs just around the corner.

And the truly disturbing? Max Pacioretty, one of the team’s rare gunners, crashed backwards into the boards in the first period after being pushed by Dmitri Kulikov, he may or may not have a concussion which may or may not be serious, and he was gone for the game.

No payback to Kulikov, who not long ago was handed a four-game suspension for clipping the Dallas Star’s Tyler Seguin. Not one stick jammed down his throat.

We might have lost our top forward, and it wouldn’t surprise me if our Russian guys Markov, Emelin, Galchenyuk, and Gonchar went for borscht with this fellow countryman bastard afterwards.

And the half dozen or so Panthers who ran Price? They walk out of the rink with not one set of stitches or crushed nose. No teeth missing. No swollen balls from a knee to the gonads. No lesson taught about not screwing with the goalie.

A good win that halts the three-game winless streak. But not such a good win with Max possibly being seriously hurt, with Price almost hurt, and the guys on the team letting it all happen with probably only a couple of F-bombs as their big time retaliation.

The nasty injury-causing stuff is beginning, I’ve been predicting this for months, and the reaction of the Canadiens was more than disappointing. Playoff-bound teams will see this and smile and rub their hands, which is the gist of my complaint here.

Next up – Thursday, when the Red Wings visit the Bell.

Fingers crossed about Max.

The power play? One for seven.

And one last thing before I head out to get my creme-filled Easter egg. DD, will you shoot the friggin puck from time to time?

The Canadiens gain just a point in losing 5-4 to the the visiting Washington Capitals after the seesaw battle went to a shootout where our guys shot blanks while one of their guys, Troy Brouwer, didn’t.

A good but not great game by the Canadiens, although they allowed just two shots by the Caps in the first period and had the fine art of throwing a blanket over the opposition down pat.

They looked good in the beginning and showed solid spurts throughout 60 minutes. But stopping big number 8 didn’t happen, which is always the key to handling Washington, and Carey Price allowed 4 goals on his first 16 shots, which isn’t exactly normal.

And although Washington could only manage two shots in that first period, the boys could only dredge up six shots themselves, so it wasn’t exactly a moment in time that they can brag to friends and family about either.

Back and forth the scoring went, beginning in the second period when Jeff Petry kicked things off, but the game soon became tied when the Caps found themselves on a two-on-one after P.K. was out of the play after being held and interfered with. (No penalty of course, because sadly, P.K. has made his bed).

Alex Ovechkin would put his team in the lead with Max in the box for holding, but just 39 seconds later, Tom Gilbert would take a nice pass from Parenteau and even things up.

Nice to see a couple of Habs blueliners, Petry and Gilbert, light the lamp.

Not quite four minutes after Gilbert’s goal, Lars Eller would convert a nice pass from Dale Weise, who had taken a rebounding puck off the backboards, and fed it back in slick fashion.

Eller, it seems, is now getting nice and primed for another big postseason. Hopefully Weise too.

In the third period, a couple of Caps’ power play goals put the Canadiens in a mess of trouble, but P.K. Subban, on a power play, blasted a blueline bomb and sent the game to overtime, which remained scoreless.

In the end, not the greatest shootout display from Les Glorieux, with Galchenyuk, Desharnais, Parenteau, and Max failing miserably, while Brower didn’t.

Now it’s down to four Habs games left in the 2014-15 regular season. A long season. But one that’s shown the Montreal Canadiens way up there, all the way through. Even though they often disappoint us.

Random Notes:

Canadiens outshot the Caps 27-19.

Ovechkin, now with 52 goals, is poised to win his third straight Rocket Richard Trophy. Now there’s some hardware that could use a Montreal Canadiens name on it for a change.

Montreal went 1/4 on the power play, which is better than most nights, while Washington was 3/4.

P.K. Subban collected a goal and 2 assists, while Galchenyuk had 2 assists as well.

I’m not able to write a decent recap of the Habs-Panthers affair on this Saturday night.

It just seems that I’m never able to go to the neighborhood community club without having biker friends and Mafia greasers and misunderstood gangland slayers insist on buying me drinks and paying for lap dancers because these folks relate to me and appreciate all those things I taught them, and which, for me anyway, makes it difficult to slip out and watch the game without them being insulted.

Although I can tell you that the Canadiens, on a goal by Max Pacioretty in overtime, won 3-2, and the boys managed two power play goals and came within one second of another.

Max’s goal was his 36th, while Alex Galchenyuk notched his 20th and Lars Eller his 12.

Canadiens outshot Florida 25-23.

Next up – Monday, when the other Florida team, the Tampa Bay Lightning, pays a visit to beautiful downtown Montreal.

It was 30 seconds of classic P.K. Subban in overtime as he swooped in with the puck and circled back and and fooled oncoming Nashville checkers.

But shortly after, our man would whiff on the puck at the blueline, trip Preds forward Filip Forsberg as he dashed through, and with PK paying for his sins in the box, this same Forsberg would bulge the twine, giving the hometown Nashville Predators a 3-2 win over the Canadiens.

It’s a point, though. And the team played reasonably well, particularly Alex Galchenyuk, P.A. Parenteau, DD, and of course Carey Price.

So all’s well, and the team now sits with 100 points, which is what the previous year’s team collected after the full 82-game season, with this these guys still having 8 games left to play.

Nashville scored the lone goal of the first period when Mattias Ekhorn outraced not one, not two, but three Habs in the process (Markov, Pleks, and PK). But early in the second, at 2:28, Brendan Gallagher would fire one home to tie things.

Later on, nice work from P.A. Parenteau to DD put the team ahead and things were looking just fine.

But a bad bounce in the third period that went offJeff Petry tied the game at two, and then in overtime, P.K. did his brilliant to not-so-brilliant flurry that finished with Nashville sealing it.

Random Notes:

The Preds outshot Montreal 31-29.

Alex Galchenyuk had a great chance to score his 20th and ice it with just over two minutes remaining, but couldn’t bury the old biscuit.

Nice to see two elite goaltenders going head to head – Pekka Rinne and our man Price. Both were solid, as expected.

Has there ever been a time this year when the puck went from PK to DD to PA to DLR to DSP?

Next up – the boys head to Manitoba to tackle the Jets on Thursday night.

The Canadiens looked like they were coming off a Demerol party when they lost 4-0 to the Sharks on March 2nd in San Jose, and which kicked off the 3-game hard-to-swallow California crushing.

It had us all in a dither.

But Saturday at the Bell, the boys played hard-hitting, slick passing big time hockey as they slayed the Sharks 2-0, making it three straight wins, four of their last five, coming not long after the aforementioned California slide had us searching for the key to the liquor cabinet.

Great game by the Habs, regardless of the fact the shirtless Joe Thornton told Sportsnet’s Christine Simpson between periods that his line had been in Montreal’s end all game.

Not what I saw, Joe. And really, for the sake of us guys watching, could you please put a shirt on.

Carey Price saved the day when called upon, which could be said for just about every time he’s manned the nets this season, with this being his 9th shutout (tying M.A. Fleury for the lead), and second in a row after beating Carolina 4-0 on Thursday.

The win is also Price 40th of the season, just two back of the Habs all-time leaders Jacques Plante and Ken Dryden, which is absolutely exciting. Price has entered the Land of the Giants.

Tomas Plekanec got his team on the board in the first period, his 22nd of the year, on a great play that gave him most of a wide-open net to shoot at. The goal also came at a great time, with just 1:14 remaining in the period, and we could see that with the way they were playing, taking the lead late like that could very well spell serious trouble for The Shirtless One and his fish.

Brendan Gallagher would notch the insurance marker, his 21st, in the third with the Sharks’ net empty, and with just seconds left and the boys up 2-0, the Ole, Ole song began, with props to the singers. You sang it at the proper time for a change. When the game wasn’t in doubt.

And man, were the last few minutes tense with the goalie pulled and the score still 1-0, and with the game, and a shutout, on the line.

But the Canadiens came through, as they did all night, standing their ground, checking hard, passing well, and all in all, unless you’re a Sharks fan, a mighty fine night at the not-so-old Bell Centre.

A nice, impressive hometown win by the gang, and a tremendous thing to see, considering there’s only nine games to go and maybe, just maybe, they’re rounding into playoff form.

Random Notes:

Tom Gilbert took a puck in the mouth area during the second period and was gone for the night. Hopefully it’s only a chiclet or two and nothing more.

Props to Brandon Prust for playing a fine game, including a nice piece of business on the penalty kill late in the game.

The Canadiens have reached 99 points, tied with Anaheim for top of the heap.

Alex Galchenyuk needs just one more to reach 20 goals.

Next up – Tuesday, when the team hits Music City, U.S.A. to shut out the Predators.

They still had to rely on Carey Price to come up big, but the Canadiens on Long Island would get the job done, winning 3-1 and looking better than they have in their other six games in March, and keeping me from putting %$#&* in the title.

Yes there were a few bad penalties taken by the boys, including a hot-headed Dale Weise boarding call that could’ve been smarter, and an Andrei Markov tripping penalty with just 4:11 left in the game and his team up-2-0, and which lead to an Islanders’ power play goal to make things tense for all concerned.

Not to mention that the Isles goal was scored after Max had sent an absolutely soft and ill-advised puck to the enemy in the slot.

But a Lars Eller empty-netter sealed it and the Canadiens, at least until Monday, stop the acid rain that has been coming down for about two weeks now, beginning in sunny California.

The win puts the Canadiens two big points ahead of the Lightning, who lost 2-1 to Winnipeg on Saturday, but most importantly, they looked like they’d finally slept off their stupor, shook out the cobwebs, and picked it up a notch.

That and Carey Price.

Montreal opened the scoring early in the second period on a Galchenyuk to Parenteau to Galchenyuk to Plekanec bang, bang, banger, and later, Max would fire one home with his team shorthanded, after Isles goaltender Michael Neuvirth left the puck behind his net, only to have it grabbed by Lars Eller who sent it out to Max.

It was also in this second frame that Carey Price swooped his glove behind him to rob Matt Martin, which you can see here at the bottom, and which is what plenty of folks will be talking about for the next day or two.

A fine effort in general by the visiting Canadiens, although they were outshot 36-30 and were saved by Price a bit more than should be expected.

They also went 0-4 on the power play but that’s not really news. They go 0-4 every game.

Next up – another important beauty as the Canadiens head to Tampa Bay for a Monday night meeting with Bolts. Time to shake these guys once and for all. They’re like leeches on the skin after swimming in local swamp.

Shoutout to both Lars Eller and P.A. Parenteau for contributing in a big way.

The Canadiens moved out into a mighty fine 2-0 lead in the first period against the Ottawa Senators after a power play marker by P.K. Subban and a nice shorthanded effort by Max.

Then the roof collapsed.

The Sens tied it in the second and scored three more in the third, and aside from the obvious disappointment felt by the masses in losing 5-2 to these miserable bastards, it means the Canadiens have dropped 5 of 6 games in March.

This worrisome slump can’t be blamed on bad luck either. The team has been outmatched lately, and what they have now to look forward to are the Islanders on Saturday and the Lightning on Monday. Two great teams just itching to keep the misery going.

It’s entirely possible this depressing slump isn’t about to end soon. The Canadiens aren’t racking up goals, whether it’s regular strength or on the power play (although P.K. blasted one home in the dying seconds of a first period 4-minute man-advantage), and unless they break on through to the other side in the next month or so, it won’t look pretty when things turn serious.

The team is in the middle of trying times, late in the season, which seems far from perfect timing. It’s a reason to be concerned, but not quite panic time. Several important guys, like Galchenyuk, Plekanec, and even Weise, are asleep at the wheel, but if they and a couple of others few pick it up a bit, these doldrums might quickly become a thing of the past.

We’re not seeing flair or colour or consistent banging or giving opposing goalies any kind of a night to work up a decent sweat. They haven’t been all that fun to watch, they’re often boring, and my kind of Montreal Canadiens team is practically the opposite of what we’ve been exposed to recently.

This team needs all four lines and defence pairings going good in their own particular ways to be considered a legitimate contender. And right now, some guys aren’t pulling their weight, the team is naturally faltering because of this, and I think many of us are less confident in them now taking a serious playoff run, which we thought could happen.

The horrible California experience and now two lousy home games have left many wondering. And the answers? Don’t look at me. I’m just a fan like everyone else, and one who’s disregarding the last half of the old adage “write drunk and edit sober.”